


Alarms Went Off at 3

by moonage_daydream



Category: Atomic Blonde (2017)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Closeted Character, Denial of Feelings, Gascival, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, References to Drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 16:23:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12324603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonage_daydream/pseuds/moonage_daydream
Summary: James Gascoigne's body has been recovered. David Percival swallows emotions faster than Jack Daniels, and has an unlikely friend to attempt to help him with his grief.





	Alarms Went Off at 3

**Author's Note:**

> Unlikely and unpopular as this headcanon may turn out to be, I love the idea of David and Delphine having been on friendly terms before she got involved with Lorraine. I wanted to explore some of that potential dynamic, along with digging into David's feelings about love and sexuality (which is frankly like getting blood out of a stone), and Delphine's agenda and methods. 
> 
> I presume an additional day and night between David's meeting with Spyglass, and Lorraine's arrival in Berlin, enough time for James Gascoigne's body to be found and things to be set in motion before David ends up waking up late tied to his bed (having been on a two day bender to forget all about it). This fic is set in that gap.
> 
> Title is from Ladytron's "Beauty*2" which seemed relevant as I was writing.

James Gascoigne was dead.  
  
David heard it clearly enough when he received the message, but he couldn't really believe it until he saw his body.  
  
That wasn't entirely true. He had believed it when James had missed their rendezvous. Or rather, it had crossed his mind. He had not wanted to believe it, yet it had still seemed a more comforting option than the alternative thought, that he'd taken the list and run.  
  
James was dead.  
  
Time to mourn was never a luxury they could afford. Documents needed to be signed. Phonecalls needed to be made. Eric Gray's anxious tension needed to be endured. That arrogant prick from the CIA needed to be avoided. Spyglass needed to be protected.  
  
Everything was in peril. Panic stations. Chaos. Fear. The war, the wall, the world on each side of it was depending on the retrieval of this list, and David was finding it hard to care about the weight of all that right now.  
  
He had spent most of the afternoon sweeping over James's apartment. He'd found the door locked from the inside, there was no sign of a struggle or a fight and an open window suggested the escape route. Trying to imagine what had happened was unavoidable in order to think where James might have stashed the list, if he had indeed done so, but retracing his footsteps revealed no answers.  
  
David knew all his usual hiding places, and imagined a few more, but found nothing. James kept a shoe box of private items and a small book of photographs hidden at the back of the wardrobe. Some over-optimistic part of David's mind goaded him that there might be some message left for him there, but there was none. He took the items with him regardless. Some things were too personal to be found by the next person to inevitably go through the place.  
  
He left frustrated, locking the door behind him. Washing up was left to dry on the side of the sink, leftovers on the stove never to be eaten, clothes discarded never to be worn again. That all would have been something to tidy up "tomorrow, in the morning". James was finicky like that, a great contrast to David himself.  At least the plants were damp enough, no need to water them. Not that it mattered now.  
  
Once the necessities had been dealt with there was little more that he could do. He had been ordered not to kick up a stink, not to go seeking revenge, though he certainly wanted to. London had promised to send him someone within days to help with the investigation and he couldn't find it in himself to be remotely pleased about it. He didn't need a minder. He wanted to be left alone with this. Who could hope to discover anything new in the city he knew so well? Who could understand his feelings about it all? Nevermind endure his mood.  
  
James was dead.  
  
The fact hit him so hard that he physically hurt, and the more he went over it in his mind, the more it ached, as if he was taking on every injury James had suffered. He felt bruised and broken and frozen and like his legs wouldn't work once he tried to walk.  
  
He'd driven home but he hadn't yet found the strength to go inside and think about what to do next. The air inside his car was stifling and humid, though he had gratefully wallowed in the heat for a long while already. It was dark outside and all was silent apart from the sound of rain against metal and glass. The world was hidden behind a veil of water. Or he was hidden within.  And damn it, but he didn't want it.  
  
He didn't want to be at the mercy of the onslaught of his own thoughts, memories he didn't want to recall right now, fears of ever forgetting them, questions, answers he didn't like, confusion, guilt, anger, clenching his throat and his stomach.  
  
How could it be that James was dead?  
  
He shoved the car door open, gulping in the cold air that met him like a slap to the face. The rain was a harsh balm to the sudden dizziness that was throttling him and he closed his eyes against it, focusing on the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears until his equilibrium felt restored.  
  
He hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon. Pulling up his coat collar he resolved that he needed to get up, get out, find some food, find some distraction in the hum of the city before his thoughts led him to destruction, find a way to fix this.  
  
Resolute as he was as he stepped out onto the street, he knew deep down that the only thing he was going to do tonight was get really fucking drunk.   
  
James was dead.  
  
This he remembered as soon as he woke, hazy in the head and dry in the mouth. The harsh reality of it clawed under his skin and wrapped around him like a fever though he tried to fight it off.  
  
He could still smell James's cologne on the pillow. Soon it would be morning, just another morning, and he'd roll his eyes to hear him humming some George Michael song in the shower while the coffee brewed...  
  
But that was not going to happen. It was not morning. By the look of the light, it was still a long way from morning. There was no weight beside him on the pillow, no arm for him to have to prise himself out of, no brush of stubble against his bare shoulder, no warm hand reaching around his chest to pull him into one of those waking-up embraces that he always tried to resist.  
  
Because James was dead. James was lying under a sheet in a morgue, tagged and cold, in a drawer like yesterday's filing.

James was dead, yet David's more immediate issue was how the fuck was he even at home in bed anyway?!

He was stripped to his vest and underpants and tangled in the bedcovers. A light was on in the living room that he seldom used. He could smell cigarettes that were not his own and a perfume that he thought he knew, but didn't usually smell in his home.

He was not alone.

He extricated himself carefully from the sheets and tried to quietly reach beneath his mattress for his gun but only succeeded in knocking over the lamp beside the bed. The light guttered and before he could get up properly someone small was upon him, pushing him back on to the mattress.

He fought against the intrusion, trying to strike, but a hand caught him firmly around the cast on his wrist, twisting his arm.

"Stop it. You're too drunk to even defend yourself." The words should not have made him quit his struggle, but the voice did.

Rolling over, he recognized the silhouette of Delphine Lasalle as she released him and set the lamp right. Which made no sense at all...

His second attempt to get out of bed was more successful, though he regretted it instantly as his head and stomach rolled in opposite directions. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Before she could answer, he pushed past her and bolted into the bathroom, staggering to slump in front of the toilet bowl as his insides rebelled. He coughed on bitter bile, finding something comforting and grounding in the throbbing pain that came with falling on his knees.

What the fuck. Just ... what the fuck?

"Shh, it's OK." A damp facecloth pressed to the back of his neck, reassuringly cold against his clammy skin. "I brought you home. Remember?"

  
He tried to speak but only managed to retch. He didn't remember. With a groan, he let his head hang over the toilet as Delphine moved from behind him. He barely took in her words or her motions, just resigned himself to letting her play mother-hen for the moment.

"Are you done? Come on, sit up."

No wait, he did remember. There had been a guy at the bar, some muscle-bound German who had apparently never heard of personal space. He'd sat too close and words had led to insults which had led to shoving, which had almost led to blows.

"Drink some water. Here. You'll feel better now."

Somewhere in the middle of this Delphine had appeared and broken it up, convinced the German to go on his way. After that everything was a bit of a blur.

"Mmh, that fucking German prick..." David leaned back against the side of the bathtub, turning his overheated cheek against the tiles. He accepted the glass of water that was pressed to his lips, drinking carefully so as not aggravate another fit of heaving. "You got me home and to bed all by yourself?"

"Believe me, it wasn't fun." With a grimace, Delphine knocked the toilet seat shut and perched on top of it. "You were really fucking drunk. I'm amazed they were still serving you drinks." Her tone was reproachful and somewhat disappointed and he didn't want to hear it.  "I have never seen you like that."  
  
"To be fair..." He hauled himself to his feet using the edge of the sink for support, possessed with the idea that putting his head under the cold tap for a moment would really help. It did. "To be fair, you don't really know me that well."

"Well enough." She shoved a towel into his hands and waited until he'd dried off before the real bollocking began. "You have a reputation but you're not careless. Tonight you were careless and you don't need me to tell you that you can't afford to be right now."

At least she had one part of that right. "Oh please! Don't lecture me." He inched past her, still a little unsteady on his feet, catching a bathrobe from the back of the door to wrap around himself. Fuck it that smelled like James too.

Delphine followed after him into the living room and he turned on his heels to face her, his back stiff. Nothing was as easy to sense on an intuitive level as a woman's anger.

"Do you remember when we first met, you gave me some advice." Her folded arms meant that at least he wasn't about to get slapped, but the pout and scowl marring her face did nothing to make him feel less attacked. "Do you remember what you said to me?"

He shrugged dismissively, but he did remember. They had met in a bar, she had come over to charm him, her cover had been painfully transparent and he'd almost been expecting it. Most new foreign agents sought him out in some way or another to see what they could gain or what they should be wary of. He played the game the same way. Delphine had invited him home that night, where her seductive charms had faded into nervous apprehension and he had called her out on her facade. They had exchanged nothing more intimate than personal secrets then, for she'd held a mirror up to him and seen in him things he seldom spoke about to anyone. He still had no idea why he had trusted her, or she him, but they kept each other's secrets with a fierce understanding.

That night was the first, last and only time they had been that close. It still felt weird to remember how he'd sat on her bed and shared cigarettes and wine while they listened to music long into the night. Delphine had fallen into a tipsy sleep with her head against his shoulder, her arm thrown around his chest. The first time in forever that he had lain close to a beautiful woman he had not been out to screw. It had been unusually refreshing and comforting, but somehow he still felt a bit ashamed of it.

The morning after, he had he warned her not to be so bloody stupid with the seduction routine because not everyone she took home would be decent enough to not take advantage. To this day he was surprised she hadn't been found dead in a ditch, which perhaps only proved she wasn't as daft as he'd first feared.

Still, he was offended at the comparison she was now making to him and he turned the subject away. "Why are you still here?"

She blinked at him, open-mouthed, incredulous that he was even asking. "I was worried about you! I wanted to make sure you weren't going to choke on your own vomit or drown yourself."

"Drown?" What in the world had he said or done...?

She laughed softly. "You don't know what a job I had to convince you that taking a bath was a really bad idea."

He flopped into an armchair, affording her a somewhat sheepish smile for that. "Well, thank you, but I'll be fine. You don't have to stay all night." He lit a cigarette but coughed painfully after one drag, and he didn't protest as Delphine took it from him.

"It's three in the morning and it's freezing out there. If you don't mind, I'd rather sit it out here until it's light."

Whether he minded or not was irrelevant, as he noticed she was already more than comfortable with her shoes and stockings off, looking shockingly fashionable with some sweater of his thrown on over her dress.

He threw up his hands. "Be my guest. You know where everything is by now." There was no doubt in his mind that she had been doing more than reading the latest issue of Playboy as he slept, and he glanced around the room, trying to see what had been moved or disturbed. "You won't find it, I don't have it," he was bold enough to be frank with her, as always.

The innocent doe-eyes sparkled into play, as always. "Excuse me?"

"The list. I don't have it. James didn't have it on him when they..."

He was grateful that she raised a hand to hush him before he had to find the words that he didn't want to speak out loud again. Her smile was kind, yet a little derisive. "You told me that three times already before you passed out."

Was she telling the truth? He didn't remember, and oh dear wasn't that the very thing she had just told him off about. Sometimes he felt she was much better at this game than he ever gave her credit for.

"Do you really still need to wear that cast?" She didn't miss a fucking beat, did she? "How long has it been now since you hurt your hand?"

"It's still not quite healed." Not a lie, it still twinged sometimes, still ached in the way any broken bone does for a while. But it did have it's advantages and sometimes it seemed like Delphine could read him like a book. "I'm not hiding anything in there for fuck's sake." He questioned himself as he said it, because actually hadn't there been something?

"You had an eighth of cocaine in there."

FUCK.

"Relax, it's in your desk drawer." She gestured for him to go check but that level of paranoia was not something he wished to display, to her or to himself. "Honestly, normally I don't care, it's none of my business, but..." she didn't need to finish her sentence.

Fuck...

He felt shocked at himself for his carelessness. The need to get out of his skull had been desperate, and now he was more sober he couldn't help but feel a bit lucky that Delphine had found him before he had found a secluded bathroom or a dark corner. This night could have ended very badly indeed.

The silence that followed was tense, and so was David. He watched Delphine as she settled back into the chair, curling her legs under herself and wrapping the sweater around her knees while she smoked his cigarette.

Another cough reminded him why he had let her take it even as he sat forward to reclaim it from her and he bit it down, miserably sinking further into his seat. Winter was already threatening to shake up bronchitis for another year, there was no sense to encourage it.

He took a deep breath and dared to close his eyes for a minute or two. His head was still reeling, but his stomach had at least settled now it had got rid of what ailed it.

"Ah! No!" A ball of paper, thrown with deft precision, struck him on the arm as he reached for a beer off the table. "I am not cleaning up after you again!"

"No one's fucking asking you to." He left it anyway, petulantly accepting the glass of water she pushed at him instead. As great as the urge was to defy her, tomorrow was undoubtedly going to be hell.

"David, look at me." She leaned closer to him until he did. "Please don't wreck yourself over this. It's not going to help anyone, especially not yourself."

She wasn't as cool as she seemed, he observed as she scratched at flaking nail polish and reached for another cigarette as soon as she'd finished the one she had.

"You're scared," he stated.

She nodded with tight lips and her voice was a whisper when she spoke. "Aren't you?"

He shook his head but not necessarily as an answer. Foolish little girl, ever wanting someone tougher to stick to. He had allowed it before, when it had suited him, but not now. "I can't help you this time, Delphine. We are all up shit creek and I do not have a spare paddle."

"That's not what I asked." She tentatively took his hand. "I don't buy this British stiff upper lip shit. How can you not be affected by this? I can see that you are."

He pulled away from her and reached for the Jack Daniels to sip from the bottle, looking away to avoid Delphine's admonishing glare. Scared wasn't something he could afford to be. This job had hardened him too much to feel scared anymore. He wasn't sure what the feeling was and he wasn't about to admit it to her, but yes, he was certainly shaken by the events, and not only because of James.

He had missed something. It was painfully obvious now that he had missed something. James was seldom rattled, yet he had seemed rattled the last time they had spoken. He had refused to say why when David had asked him, and had insisted on changing the subject.

David had thought little of it at the time. James had become increasingly distant ever since he'd hooked up with that old girlfriend earlier in the year and so he'd put it down to that, not wanting to pursue the matter in case he got accused of being petty and jealous again.

Had they stopped trusting each other at some point? Had they ever truly trusted each other? Was anyone in this job really able to trust another?

He should have pursued it. Alarms should have sounded earlier. He should have gone to Spyglass himself, as he'd first thought to before it was mutually decided that James alone would be less obvious.  

Why hadn't James come to him as they had agreed? Who had got after him to make him run out in the middle of the night in just his underclothes? What had led him straight into the Russian's trap? Was Spyglass untrustworthy? Or was it something else?

"By the way," Delphine broke into his thoughts. "It's funny what you learn about a man when he's drunk." He merely looked at her and she smiled at him. Ah, now she was trying to lighten the mood. "You never told me you speak such good French."

Oh shit, what had he said? Regardless, if she'd actually done her homework properly then she wouldn't be surprised. "Tu ne m'as jamais demandé," he retorted, offering her no better answer as he took another drink from the bottle.

He didn't need her sigh to tell him that would be instantly regrettable. He had no choice but to swallow the over generous mouthful even as it burned and constricted his throat, rather than spit it across the table.

He heaved as his stomach twisted up again and Delphine was at his side in a heartbeat, a basin in hand. He had a sudden flashback that they had been in this position already some hours ago.

"I'm all right," he mumbled, pulling in a deep breath through his nose. "I'm not going to be sick again." It was almost an order to himself. This was getting beyond embarrassing now.

Delphine observed him for a long moment before she seemed convinced. "Come on, let's get you back to bed." She prised the bottle from his hand and pulled him up by the elbow.

As suddenly cold and ill as he felt, he couldn't muster the willpower to do anything but go along with her as she led him to lie down, helping him settle comfortably before she went off to bring a packet of aspirin and a water bottle to the side of the bed. "For the morning."

His frustration was reaching the end of it's tether and it was moments away from snapping and running loose. He was not used to being nursed and he didn't like it one bit. James would have just thrown him into bed and told him to get on with it, told him it was his own fault, told him he deserved the hangover and the bad stomach, sometimes with a fond chuckle and a ruffle of the head, other times with an angry rebuke that he drank too much and didn't take enough care of himself.

"Fuck, stop laying it on so thick!" He swatted Delphine away as she tried to pull a blanket over him. "I'm not four years old, and I'm not buying this care package. You've already had hours in here to find anything you wanted to find, if you can't do it in that time then you're not up to scratch."

She looked genuinely offended. Maybe.

"Seriously, why else are you here? It's not like you're the kind of girl who's any good to me in my bed."

"Really?" His insults did nothing to shake her tenacity and a hard shove in his chest pitched him back into the pillows. "I doubt you could even get it up at the moment." Her smirk was brazenly scathing. "Is it really so impossible for you to believe that someone is just being kind?"

He scoffed. "There's no kindness among people like us. Only as it serves a purpose."

"Speak for yourself." She smiled at him like she knew a secret he did not.

Maybe she did. Maybe it wasn't a secret. It never had been, no matter how hard he'd tried to keep it that way. James had always been hatefully sentimental, to the point of being deliberately annoying with it. David had never said those words back, no matter how much James had needed him to, he had never been able to, he had never wanted to and God damn it this was why. It was so trivial at the end of the day. What was the point in accepting love if it felt so barren when it was gone?

"Thinking like that's going to get you killed, darling, and it is not worth dying for."

Her smile did not waver. "Something worth dying for has to be worth living for."

David rolled his eyes. There was the poet she fancied herself to be. What the hell was that even supposed to mean? What had James died for, he wondered. He was certain it was not worth it.

Delphine settled on the bed next to him, her head resting on her elbow, silent now, a challenging invitation for him to keep arguing.

God but he couldn't look at her. It pained him. She was entirely too pretty and so different to the girls that normally frequented these sheets and he was not capable of dealing with softness. He wanted to yell and curse and beat things until the rage was gone but he hadn't the energy. Falling into a stupor was the next best option.

He closed his eyes and turned away to bury his face into his pillow. Sudden tears were stinging against his eyelashes and he had no plan to give in to them. He didn't cry. He never cried. Unless he'd been drinking gin and he wasn't sure if he hadn't been.

"David..."

He drew a tight breath, shocked at how wounded it sounded to his own ears. It felt like being stabbed. Humiliation coiled within him, forcing it's way up into his throat as something between a whimper and a cough, betraying all attempts to cling to what was left of his dignity.

He cringed away from the hand stroking circles on his back. So light, so gentle. An invitation into an embrace that would be warm and comforting and sweet smelling. It would undo him if he let it. He couldn't let it.

"David, I know..."

All he could do was shake his head and try to catch his breath, praying she'd take a hint and stop pushing this. After a moment his vision cleared and when he glanced back, Delphine's hand was still reaching out to him, like one would to a scared animal. He found it so belittling all he could do was sharply strike it away."Get off me."

She withdrew with a gasp, clutching her wrist. "I know Gascoigne meant a lot to you." She spoke quickly around his breathless complaint. "That's all. And I'm sorry."

He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "The job means more." The secrets meant more. The silence meant more. It certainly had for James. "It has to."

"Then sober up and do your damn job before somebody else gets killed." At least she had the grace to sit back and wince like she knew her comment was not a good choice.

"Fuck you." He wanted to spit a longer string of choice words at her for her condescending attitude, or at least give her the finger and roll over again and ignore her. Fuck, who was she to tell him what to do or how to do it?  Nevermind that she'd hauled his drunk arse all the way home tonight and probably saved him getting a hiding, he was damned if he was going to let her say shit like that.

Yet exhaustion was paralysing him and so he was letting her.  

With a pointed huff, Delphine left his side for a moment to dim the lights before returning to sit beside him on the edge of the bed.

"David?"

He mumbled a sound to tell her he was still awake, torn as he was between passing out and fighting to stay conscious out of instinctive defence. The sensation of her fingernails kneading his scalp at the base of his neck was making him even more drowsy and it was impossible not to turn his head into it. Why? Why wouldn't she just go to the couch, or continue snooping around his stuff, or even just lie down next to him and go to sleep?

With a grumble, he surrendered himself and made no further fight to deter her. He was too weary. It was time to let the world fade to nothing, and he was powerless to stop it.

"If there's some way I can help you..."

"Hm. There might be." He wasn't even sure what he was answering anymore.

When he woke again, he woke alone.

**Author's Note:**

> "Tu ne m'as jamais demandé" - you never asked.  
> In "The Coldest Winter" graphic novel it mentions David's father having been a spy in Vichy France when he was a little boy. Historically that doesn't work for movie David who is younger, but I still like this idea of his father and so David grew up also with ties to France.


End file.
